Thursday Tidbits – Page 2 – KM Huber's Blog

Thursday Tidbits: The Zen of Kitchen Tasks and Meditating Cats

Posted on March 28, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Cooper and EmmaRose, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits post considers Zen as revealed through meditating cats and kitchen tasks, the everyday of Zen spirituality.

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

Alan Watts

Perhaps more than I should admit, Zen spirituality is a constant in my kitchen, which is not to say that I am able to tend to the task at hand completely, far too often not. Rather, as I am chopping onion I consider what the next moment might offer. Rarely, do I consider the onion.

EmmaRose in MeditationKMHuberImage — EmmaRose in Meditation
KMHuberImage

Often my musing ranges far beyond the physical plane–my own private “soaring with the over-soul”*–rather than considering the outcome for the onion, usually mere mush.

At best, I might be considering whether I will scramble eggs or shred lettuce for a salad; both are dictated by the state of the onion and just how far my thoughts have strayed.

It is scrambled eggs if I am envisioning the next scene in my old woman novel but the salad may be saved if I have only strayed to whether or not laundry needs to be done. The answer to that is always the same, a crisp, clear “no.”

Every time I immerse myself in the Zen spirituality of the mundane, I discover something new. It never fails. To be fair, when my thoughts are anywhere but the task at hand, there are also discoveries, including the best tasting cup of coffee is made from the proper proportions of both water and coffee.

Regardless of the outcome, discovery expands the moment to its brim. There was a time that a burnt coffee carafe or hot, coffee-colored water dismayed me, and although I may greet those moments in resignation, I am able to see them in their own Zen spirituality.

Living with animals has taught me more about Zen spirituality than any other resource, including kitchen tasks. This week’s video, courtesy of ZenFlash, features just over a minute of cats meditating, which I found illustrative of Zen but not the kind of meditation that feline EmmaRose has taught me.

EmmaRose has always been a meditating cat but not with any kind of object, especially round and especially large, as she tops the scale at five-and-one-half pounds. For EmmaRose, small, round objects are for batting and chasing into obscure areas invisible to human eyes. She prefers meditating at the window, which she does daily, and she considers the panes carefully.

Choosing Her PaneKMHuberImage — Choosing Her Pane
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Often, squirrels are visible from the right pane while the left side might offer a darting, lime-green lizard–EmmaRose seems to sense the season for lizard viewing–the middle pane offers the most sun on any day. Whatever these moments provide EmmaRose, she is at her window to discover anew each day.

Who is to say whether or not she “soars with the over-soul”* for she has the light of day, which may offer a squirrel or the infrequent lizard as well.

I and my onion can only aspire.

Thursday Tidbits are weekly posts that offer choice bits of information to celebrate our oneness with one another through our unique perspectives. It is how we connect, how we have always connected but in the 21st century, the connection is a global one.

*“Soaring with the over-soul” is from a satirical essay Louisa May Alcott wrote regarding her father’s involvement with 19th century transcendentalism.

Thursday Tidbits: Digging Deep for “Meraki”

Posted on March 21, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Lupus, Oneness, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers meraki, a modern Greek word for that “extra something” we add to whatever we’re doing, no matter the task. Usually intangible and often inexplicable, meraki helps us immerse ourselves into whatever is at hand. We dig deep for meraki.

Over the last few weeks, I have had to reinvent my diet, in fact my entire daily way of being. Thanks to Prompts for the Promptless, I now have a word for it, meraki, which actually is often associated with cooking, that hard to identify ingredient or quality so essential to adapting to life.

Although I thought I was on a Slow Boat to Fitness, it seems it was not my boat at all. Last November, I began supplementing my diet with a few legumes, bread made from brown rice, and a few fruits. I was able to tolerate the extra carbohydrates but steadily the inflammation increased as did the discomfort. Only apples are still allowed.

At first, I thought it was the yoga so I modified my practice yet eventually, I had to stop. I continued with my walking but as the inflammation and discomfort increased, my distance lessened. Yet, after five months, I finally had a meraki moment.

Did I gain weight? Yes one day and no the next and then yes again, the usual roller coaster that has been my experience with the inflammation from degenerative arthritis and lupus. Overall, my weight did not change, which I attribute to the doshas of Ayurveda, of which I am kapha, mostly. Ayurveda eased me into my meraki moment regarding my food.

The ancient art of Ayurveda is not concerned with classifying carbohydrates, proteins, and fats but concentrates on the six tastes found in food: the hot tastes of pungent, sour, and salty; the cold tastes of bitter, astringent, and sweet. Those tastes carry different messages to the body and it reacts accordingly. Ayurveda is so much more than that but I am just beginning.

For me, Ayurveda provides a way to practice my meraki with maitri or loving-kindness as I let go of a diet that I enjoyed but did not provide my body the fuel it must have to fight inflammation and support my joints. I was looking outside myself for answers that were always within me:

“If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.” ~ Tung-Shan ~

Meraki helps me listen to my body rather than sending it commands to which it cannot comply because it does not have the energy. A return to yoga is actually relieving some of the discomfort in my joints, and the walking is easier.

With meraki, which always involves one’s enthusiasm for life, I have added daily trips to the delightful blog, Zen flash, an online temple offering daily posts of solitary images and transcendent lines. It is a part of my morning meditation practice but I also visit at other times to remember:

“Everyday life

is not divorced from

the Eternal State.

~~Sri Ramana Maharshi

In the spirit of Zen flash, this week’s video offers Schumann’s Opus 15 as a moment of merkai from me to you.

Thursday Tidbits: The Wu Wei In All of Us

Posted on March 14, 2013August 21, 2014 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits post considers Taoism’s “wu wei,” literally translated as non-doing or non action. Reaching for the good that is in all of us—listening to our heart over our head—is innate in us, as is the risk of opening ourselves to the world. In addition, wu wei is the current prompt in rarasaur’s delightful series, Prompts for the Promptless. Here is rarasaur’s description of the essence of wu wei:

“Wu wei, or non-doing, is a Taoist practice involving letting one’s action follow the simple and spontaneous course of nature rather than interfering with the harmonious working of universal law by imposing arbitrary and artificial forms. In other words, it is the action of non-action.”

I had not considered wu wei for this week’s Thursday Tidbits until I read rarasaur’s prompt, yet wu wei encompasses the heart of the three posts I chose from dailygood.org. In considerably different ways, each is a story of the open heart, the voice of instinct.

An Astounding Act of High School Sportsmanship is about a high school basketball game in El Paso, TX. Although the video is no longer available, the words revealing the thoughts of the young basketball player will open your heart. It’s a wu wei reminder that every day we have an opportunity to let another person shine, to realize it is the other person’s light that is necessary, and our role is to make that happen. In this case, the game’s outcome was not in jeopardy for this moment was not about the game. It was about knowing whose turn it is and rising to the occasion.

The second story opens with: “It says something about where we’ve come as a society that the simple act of fixing something that’s broken is considered a revolutionary act. Yet here we are” at The Repair Café. The Café originated in the Netherlands in 2010 and is slowly but steadily gaining global awareness. It is a decide-for-yourself café where people can learn how to fix items or have items fixed. They can have a coffee or read a do-it-yourself book to learn how to or wait for an item to be fixed.

The Café is a place to work with stuff—recognizing what comprises it and how it works—it is a place to hone inner resources as well, passing skills from one generation to another. It is the wu wei of sharing who we are and what we have with one another in respect for the resources of the planet.

Finally, there is the poignant story of Susan Spencer-Wendel who wrote Until I Say Goodbye, a book based on her year of living with joy. She used her iPhone to write her 89,000 word book as she only had the use of her right thumb.

Her herculean effort is consistent with her comment regarding her diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease): [I was] “equally grateful for a life of perfect health and determined to face it with bravery.” Hers is the way of the wu wei warrior, brave in her acceptance of what is and ever seeking all that it may give her.

Wu wei is the way of the open heart, immersing ourselves into what is without trying to control the outcome. It is acceptance. Wu wei is not something we pursue but a reminder that our natural state is to open ourselves to all that we are so we may be:

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” (Elizabeth Appell).

This week’s video features the Indigo Girls’ “Galileo,” a man who risked a lifetime for truth.

Thursday Tidbits: The Fragrance of Forgiveness

Posted on March 7, 2013August 21, 2014 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits post considers forgiveness, which is also the Bloggers for Peace challenge for March. Forgiveness may be the heart of peace but giving and getting forgiveness from the heart is not easy for any of us.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. (Anonymous)

Always, we wish to know the fragrance of the violet but must it always come at such a price? It seems to be the history of humanity that it does, yet it is also the history of humanity to know peace, compassion, love, and equanimity, all inherent in the fragrance. We begin where we can, within ourselves.

Consider The Four Agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz:

Be impeccable in your word
Don’t take anything personally
Don’t make assumptions
Always do your best.

Inherent in the agreements is maitri, of which compassion is certainly a form, but maitri is the complete and total acceptance of one’s self. No conditions. Maitri is where forgiveness begins, a seed that we all may plant, and as the seed grows, so grows our ability to accept ourselves.

In accepting ourselves, we pursue compassionate truth, regardless of outcome. We do not deceive ourselves for outcome is often a sticking point, but if we do not take things personally and do not make assumptions, we are doing our best to be impeccable in our word.

Anger has a role in forgiveness as well as in peace, and not to acknowledge anger is not to pursue peace. There is the anger from a closed heart, the kind we all readily recognize, and then there is anger that is not personal or based upon any assumptions, the anger of the impeccable word, the anger-with-the-heart-open:

“For when there is no desire to wound or punish or blame, we become able to speak with great clarity and power. We may roar like a lion, but it is a healing roar. We may be challenging, but we are infinitely fair. We may be outraged, but we are respectful. This is ‘anger-with-the-heart-open’ and it has a beauty, a passion, and a clarity that is unmistakable”
(Processing Anger With An Open Heart).

In forgiveness, we leave the past where it is, when it happened, who did it, and what occurred. We accept that the past cannot be changed:

“Forgiving someone can mean giving them another chance, not necessarily because they deserve it, but because they need it. When you forgive, you love. You stop being a victim and you let go of the pain. Forgiving others can give us back the laughter and the peace in our lives.”
(grandmalin.wordpress.com)

We immerse ourselves in the acceptance of all that we are and are not, our wisdom and grace, our missteps and shortcomings. We accept that all the life we have lived up to the present moment is the foundation for our being here now. On our impeccable word floats the fragrance of forgiveness.

This week’s video features an acoustic version of Matthew West’s “Forgiveness.”

Thursday Tidbits: the 11th Possibility

Posted on February 28, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers the 11^th possibility as defined on rarasaur’s wonderful blog series, Prompts for the Promptless. The series is not just for bloggers but for anyone who wants to stretch and flex the mind. To me, that is where the 11^th possibility resides:

“The 11th Possibility is the idea that, regardless of data to the contrary, something unexpected and outside the realm of ordinary thought is always potentially around the corner” (rarasaur).

Perhaps the 11^th possibility is the heartbeat of curiosity, comfortable in the uncertainty that a nine out of ten result is lost in the light of the one time it is a glimpse into the unknown. We are startled into complete attention, our creativity sparked, for we see in way we did not, which makes all the difference.

Consider Albert Einstein’s thoughts on a human being in contrast to how we might consider being human:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘the universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.

KMHuberImage, Waverly Pond, Florida — KMHuberImage

“This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty” (Einstein).

In that regard, what if we eagerly anticipate the 11^th possibility–the idea that the unknown and uncertain might occur–rather than relying on the ten probabilities that precede it? Clearly, I am mixing math and probability with mere musing but the 11^th possibility is so like Randall Jarrell’s sick child crying out, “all that I’ve never thought of think of me,” and so I do.

Perhaps my favorite illustration of the 11^th possibility is the story of the monarch butterfly that caught a ride with Southwest Airlines. True to its own timetable, the monarch butterfly overslept in its New York state cocoon and missed the insect group flight to Texas. Thanks to a woman who simply asked an airline if it would transport a butterfly to Texas, the butterfly caught a ride to San Antonio.

“It is a grand gesture, to be sure, ushering that lonely insect back on its way — but If the gentle flap of a single butterfly’s wings can shape the weather, then perhaps the kindness shown towards saving one butterfly’s life could change the course of history for the better” (Daily Good.org)

Regardless, with a little help from each other, the uncertainty of the unknown is a mere 11^th possibility. Imagine that.

This week’s video features Joe Cocker singing his rather famous reminder of our connection to one another.

Thursday Tidbits: Neurosis Interrupted

Posted on February 21, 2013 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits post ponders neurosis or what Pema Chödrön refers to as Training in the Three Difficulties:

“The three difficulties (or the three difficult practices) are:

1. “to recognize your neurosis as neurosis,
2. “then not to do the habitual thing, but
to do something different to interrupt
the neurotic habit, and
3. “to make this practice a way of life”

(Pema Chödrön’s Quotes of the Week).

KMHuberImage; St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge; Florida; USA — KMHuberImage

In light of my metaphorical faucet fixing last week, I found this examination of neurosis rather revealing. For most of my life, I have been considered anti-establishment, a deeply 60s term and apt label for my own neurotic groove, the face I show to the world.

In these last few years, my inner self has taken up its own anti-establishment banner so that within and without are the same reflection, not always true in previous decades. It is my way of saying “no” to what I have known and “why not” to what is uncertain.

As part of my “training in the three difficulties,” I am reminded of a favorite morning meditation on the true and false self from Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening:

“… It is the true self that lets us know what is authentic and what has become artificial, while the false self is a diplomat of distrust, enforcing a lifestyle of guardedness, secrecy, and complaint.”

“…Each time we experience a change in reality as we know it, we must choose whether to declare or hide what we know to be true. At such moments, we either need to bring the way we have been living into accord with that shift of reality, or we need to resist the change.…

“Whether we live in our true or false self depends on our willingness to stay real.… Staying real becomes the work of keeping our actions in the world connected to the truth of our inner being, allowing our true self to see the light of day” (Mark Nepo).

It is the “staying real” that reveals our every day practice, how much we actually train, how much we exercise our resolve and whether or not we leave it on the training mat, a hard habit to break….

One way to keep the training fresh and the resolve intact is in hearing new voices. This past week, I learned about Jeff Foster on Tomas’s blog where I discovered the following quote that originally appeared on Foster’s Facebook page:

“I don’t want to fix you. I don’t want to give you answers. I don’t want to impress you. I don’t want you to change. I only want to meet you, exactly as you are, beyond your stories, your hopes and dreams, your games, your masks, here and now.

“If you feel confused, feel confused now. If you feel frightened, feel frightened now. If you are bored, let’s get bored together. If you are burning with rage, let’s burn together awhile and see what happens. I want to meet what’s really here. Perhaps then, great change is possible” (Jeff Foster).

If our training on the inside is reflected in the face we reveal to the world, then our daily practice is who we are. Why not, then, a change of habit, a foregoing of neurosis, even great change?

Finally, I include a 1960s blurry, black and white video of Simon and Garfunkel singing, “I Am a Rock.” Before the song, however, Paul Simon offers a comment on neurosis.

Thursday Tidbits: Fearlessness and Faucets

Posted on February 14, 2013 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

Learning fearlessness is like applying just the right amount of pressure to the handle of a leaky faucet spout, trial and error. All things (and people) wear out, which may just be the root of all fear as well as the source of fearlessness.

Being fearless is experiencing the moment fully, regardless. We are told to face our fears for they are all we have to fear (Franklin Roosevelt), or we can consider the words of Thich Nhat Hanh: “If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay.”

Once again, I hear the Cherokee story about attending my two inner wolves, dark and light. In order for the light to break through, I must see into the dark, attend it, which is not the same as appeasing it. Of late, my inner wolves have been as insistent as the drip of my faucet, all awaiting attention.

The longer I live the more I believe the key to fear is acknowledging that it never goes away—it lives within the dark wolf—and requires a lifetime of attention. One remains a fearless witness to one’s life:

“When we practice inviting all our fears up, we become aware that we are still alive, that we still have many things to treasure and enjoy. If we are not pushing down and managing our fear, we can enjoy the sunshine, the fog, the air, and the water. If you can look deep into your fear and have a clear vision of it, then you really can live a life that is worthwhile” (Fearlessness, Thich Nhat Hanh).

As in Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul, one does not engage the fear by creating a future scenario or by visiting a past moment and tweaking it a bit—no to both. The moment is the only reality there ever is, and if one works with and faces that reality, then one’s life unfolds before one’s eyes, fearlessly.

That is the heart of my practice these days: transforming my fears so that they are attended to, rather like the persistent drip of my aged faucet with its spout and base leaks. I am mindful of the pressure I apply to its worn handle. It has a bit more time left and is worth my attention.

“Nobody can give you fearlessness. Even if the Buddha were sitting right here next to you, he couldn’t give it to you. You have to practice it and realize it yourself. If you make a habit of mindfulness practice, when difficulties arise, you will already know what to do” (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Tomas at Heartflow 2013 offers another perspective on experiencing the moment for what it is. My favorite quote from the post is “don’t pacify yourself with platitudes.”

As this is Valentine’s Day, here is Eva Cassidy singing “The Water is Wide.”

Thursday Tidbits: The Inner Wolves

Posted on February 7, 2013 by KM Huber in Oneness, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits is my February post as part of the Bloggers for Peace movement. At least once a month, over 100 bloggers dedicate at least one blog post to peace and its many facets.

On this blog, I explore peace fairly frequently including the fascinating fact that critical mass consciousness is now possible through the technology that connects the world. Imagine the possibilities for the world if we let peace begin within each one of us. Yet, how to secure the peace within….

There is a Cherokee story about a conversation on life between a grandfather and his grandson. The grandfather tells a vivid tale of the battle between his inner “black wolf and white wolf.” The two wolves are constantly fighting each other no matter what the grandfather does. The grandson wonders which wolf will win.

Here is the grandfather’s reply:

“If you feed them right, they both win.

“…the white wolf needs the black wolf at his side. To feed only one would starve the other and they will become uncontrollable. To feed and care for both means they will serve you well and do nothing that is not a part of something greater, something good, something of life. Feed them both and there will be no more internal struggle for your attention.

“And when there is no battle inside, you can listen to the voices of deeper knowing that will guide you in choosing what is right in every circumstance.

“Peace, my son, is the Cherokee mission in life. A man or a woman who has peace inside has everything. A man or a woman who is pulled apart by the war inside him or her has nothing.

“How you choose to interact with the opposing forces within you will determine your life. Starve one or the other or guide them both” (Beyond the Conflict of Inner Forces at www.awakin.org).

No matter what characteristics you attribute to your inner wolves, they are the two halves of the one that is you. Your left and right halves of your body make up the physical you; emotionally, your ego provides the context of your life, surrendering only to compassion, gratitude, love and joy. In peace, there is no reaction to chaos, only response out of stillness.

For me, the Cherokee story is also another way to view the paradox that is duality: Oneness originates out of opposites becoming one, equal in every way. Only in equanimity is there peace, which requires lifelong attention to the light and dark that is in each one of us, where peace begins.

Once again, my thanks to Kozo at Everyday Gurus for this mindful way to spend 2013 as well as every moment we ever have.

Blogs of Interest:

Kozo on Peace Practice

Radical Amazement on The Presence of Peace

Bullzen on How to Save the World (Abridged)

Grandmalin on The Global Family

Thursday Tidbits: I’ll Take the Unknown

Posted on January 31, 2013February 6, 2013 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

Today’s Thursday Tidbits swirls around the unknown, where creativity and courage reside, and where we humans fear to tread with any kind of regular practice.

For me, it has been a week that has offered one unknown after another; new perspectives on the known is one way I consider them.

I am getting used to the experience of what I know, or thought I knew, becoming something else. Yet, it is challenging when the present offers an array of unexpected moments, one after another.

It is a lot to breathe in and out but breathe I do; so far, breathing is a constant known, or is it.

“Breathing is the fundamental unit of risk, the atom of inner courage that leads us into authentic living. With each breath, we practice opening, taking in, and releasing. Literally, the teacher is under our nose. When anxious, we simply have to remember to breathe” (Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening)

Yes, the teacher and I have been close this past week; perhaps you, too, have had such a week. Just about the time I was wondering how much more creativity I could appreciate in any moment, I came across a quote from David Deida:

“Right now, and in every now-moment, you are either closing or opening. You are either stressfully waiting for something-–more money, security, affection-–or you are living from your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting” (David Deida).

The quote opens a fascinating article by Gail Brenner, “The Wisdom of Forgetting Everything You Know.” It was just the kind of wisdom that allowed me some easy breaths so I am sharing an excerpt with you:

“Here is what not knowing looks like:

“You wake up on a weekend morning without any plans, and you let your day unfold.

“You stop saying the same unproductive statement to your partner and let yourself not know what will happen next.

“You sit and take a breath rather than propelling yourself forward into the next activity.

“You press pause on a habit without knowing what you will do or say next.

“You let your routine fall away so you can be guided by the natural flow of things.

“You let go of, `I have to…’ and let yourself rest for a moment.

”You tell yourself the truth about the motivation behind the things you do, and surrender to not knowing.

”You forget who you think you are. Instead of same old, same old, you show up fresh, new, and unencumbered.

”Just contemplating any of the examples on this list may make you gasp for air. How could you have no plans for a whole day or stop carrying out familiar routines?

“Center yourself in the wisdom of not knowing:

“You are aligned with the truth of things as they are.

“You open to the possibility of freedom from habits that are limiting and painful.

“You live in reality and not in your mind-constructed version of a false reality.

“You are here, alive, embodied, available.

“It is natural to be afraid to let go of the known. Remember that life wants you to live fully and to express yourself in beautiful and amazing ways. But you can’t know what they are” (“The Wisdom of Forgetting Everything You Know” at www. dailygood.org)

Thank you, Gail Brenner; I’ll take the unknown. As for breathing, here is Faith Hill:

Thursday Tidbits: Getting What You Want

Posted on January 24, 2013January 24, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Oneness, Thursday Tidbits

Welcome to Thursday Tidbits, choice bits of information that celebrate our oneness with one another through our unique perspectives. It is how we connect, how we have always connected but in the 21st century, the connection is more immediate than it has ever been.

As I continue to explore detachment—or not trying to control the outcome of a moment—it seems to be a matter of attention and intention, which Deepak Chopra says are the two qualities of consciousness. In other words, through attention and intention we create the reality we live:

“Intention combined with detachment leads to life-centered, present moment awareness. And when action is performed in present moment awareness, it is most effective. Your intent is for the future, but your attention is in the present. As long as your attention is in the present, then your intent for the future will manifest, because the future is created in the present” (Seven Spiritual Laws of Success).

But what follows is not quite as easy, at least for this human:

“You must accept the present as is. Accept the present and intend the future. The future is something you can always create through detached intention, but you should never struggle against the present” (Seven Spiritual Laws of Success).

Often, not struggling seems like giving up or not standing up for one’s beliefs but I suspect that is where detachment lies. We immerse ourselves in the moment and not its possible outcome. And if we feel stuck in the moment?

In Pema Chödrön’s quote for the week, “The Sensation of Bliss,” she relays a time in her life when she was feeling quite overwhelmed, anxious and the more she “settled into” the feeling the more it consumed her.

She consulted one of her teachers who told her that he, too, had experienced a similar feeling and then asked her to describe her experience, including all of the physical sensations she felt. Here, she relates what her teacher told her:

“… He brightened up and said, `Ani Pema…That’s a high level of spiritual bliss.’ I almost fell off my chair. I thought, `Wow, this is great!’ And I couldn’t wait to feel that intensity again. And do you know what happened? When I eagerly sat down to practice, of course, since the resistance was gone, so was the anxiety” (Pema Chödrön’s Quote of the Week).

Somewhat similar was my own feeling regarding Cooper’s death. Fearful of his having another seizure, I lie awake, watching him sleep, yet as Christmas Eve became Christmas morn, the anxiety and resistance to his impending death left me. They never returned.

What has filled me is an immense gratitude for being, and with it, joy. And yes, it still amazes me. “Past and future are born in the imagination; only the present, which is awareness, is real and eternal. It is” (Law of Intention and Desire, Seven Spiritual Laws of Success).

The Deepak Chopra video is a how-to on the Law of Intention and Desire, in particular on what to focus your attention so your intention may go to work for you.

Recent Inspiring Posts:

Heartflow 2013: Made for These Times

Everyday Gurus: A Split Second To Peace

Barbara Kingsolver excerpt: Small Wonder

Taoist Path: Attention and Intention in a Hectic World

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